Initial revision

[ssr] / StraySrc / ssr-order

From: mdw@excessus.ebi.ac.uk (Mark Wooding)
Subject: Re: E is for Enlightenment
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 1997 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <slrn69jenb.agt.mdw@excessus.ebi.ac.uk>
References: <slrn69a3bm.eea.mdw@excessus.ebi.ac.uk>
Organization: MRC Human Genome Mapping Project Resource Centre
Reply-To: mdw@ebi.ac.uk
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.programmer



[This isn't really a follow-up to anyone in particular, although it
belongs in the same thread.]


I'm extremely heartened by the interest people have shown.  I've even
had people throwing themselves at me and trying to persuade me not to do
this.  This puzzled me.  That's not really the point.  Thanks to
everyone.

I ought to try to explain in more detail how the Straylight Source
Release (or SSR) is going to work.  There's nothing to see yet.
Sources, when they appear, will be available by anonymous FTP from
odie.barnet.ac.uk, in the directory /pub/Acorn/straylight.

The SSR will appear one chunk at a time, hopefully in a sensible order
(so that you don't need to wait for the next chunk before building this
one).  Some chunks are big, and some are small.  Each one will be a Zip
file, accompanied by a detached PGP signature.

I don't have an exact timescale planned.  Some parts have to be delayed
because they depend on earlier chunks.  Other chunks have licensing
problems which I need to sort out.  In all, I reckon it'll take about
three or four months for everything to appear.  Don't rush me.

The order of things will probably be like this:

  * Base -- a collection of little libraries, header files and tools which
    you need to build everything else.

  * BAS -- the Basic Assembler Supplement.  It's a macro library for
    BASIC assembler users which generates AOF and does some other
    stuff.

  * Sculptrix -- Our 3D border module.  There's some lovely code in
    here, I think.  (Sculptrix has a mutual dependency with Sapphire,
    since the Setrix application is Sapphire-based, and Sapphire uses
    Sculptrix for its borders.)

  * SDLS -- the Straylight Dynamic Linking System.  You know what this
    is, I hope.

  * Sapphire -- Straylight's seriously neat library, written entirely in
    assembler.  I don't imagine anyone actually using this, although I'm
    sure some people will find it interesting.

  * Dynamite -- the heap manager.  You know about this too.

  * Toys -- some toys, some based on Sapphire.  Many of them are
    designed to test Sapphire features.

  * STEEL -- our old library.  This is C-oriented, and only really
    released because Glass needs it.

  * Glass -- the template editor.  Go fetch, use, enjoy.

  * Toys -- more toys, mostly older ones, based on STEEL.

On licensing: sources will be available under the GPL, except for
Sapphire and STEEL, which will be available under the Library GPL.
Software currently available as binaries under different conditions will
continue to be available under those conditions, although this will only
apply to the unmodified binaries, not anything you compile yourself from
the supplied sources.

I might as well point out that quite a lot of this isn't commercial-
quality stuff.  There's hardly any documentation for anything, and
there'll probably be lots of bugs.  I'm /not/ planning on doing much in
the way of maintenance on any of this stuff.  If it breaks, you get to
keep both pieces.
-- 
[mdw]

`It can't rain all the time.'
		-- Eric Draven